Hamilton's 'Noles prepared to end March sadness

Exclusion from NCAAs nags at seniors

November 9, 2007|BY ANDREW CARTER TALLAHASSEE BUREAU

TALLAHASSEE — Florida State basketball players would prefer to live in the present, to focus on preparation for a season that begins here tonight against Nicholls State and to work toward earning their program's first bid to the NCAA Tournament in a decade.

It's just that nobody around here can forget about the past two seasons and the heartbreak of those March Sundays, when they'd watch the NCAA Tournament field form before their eyes without them.

On the second of those Sundays last March, Isaiah Swann went home and went to sleep. He couldn't do anything else. He couldn't relax. He couldn't call friends or family. He couldn't be consoled.

"I think if I would have talked to somebody that night I probably would have just been crying on the phone or something," Swann said. He's an FSU senior, one of four on coach Leonard Hamilton's team.

That same Sunday night back in March, Swann's teammate and classmate, Ralph Mims, meditated for 30 minutes. Then he went home and asked, "Why us?" And then he cried by himself in the quiet of his room.

"Because it's like we've been this close," Mims said. "And I've been here going on four years now. And I've been out of the tournament for three years. And it hurts."

It hurts so bad that neither Swann nor Mims nor any of their teammates talk among themselves about the near misses of the past couple of seasons. They just know.

"We know how it feels," Mims said, "to be sitting in the locker room, sitting there right in front of the big screen, [the final] team called there - and it's not you."

A couple of years ago, the Seminoles went 9-7 in the Atlantic Coast Conference but became the rare ACC team not to make the tournament with a winning league record. A season ago - despite going 1-4 without injured point guard Toney Douglas - FSU went 7-9 in the conference but beat Duke on the road and won 20 games before Selection Sunday.

Since the NCAA Tournament expanded to 64 teams, no ACC team has ever been .500 in league play over two seasons and failed to make the tournament both years. No team except Florida State.

"We're awful close," said Hamilton, who received a contract extension through the 2011-12 season Thursday. "But we can't be close anymore."

Hamilton doesn't sound like a coach who lost a first-team All-ACC forward, one who averaged 19.7 points and 7.2 rebounds per game. Those were the numbers a season ago for Al Thornton, who developed over four years into one of the best players in school history and who is now making his living with the Los Angeles Clippers.

But Hamilton likes his team just fine without Thornton.

Four starters are back, including Swann and fellow guards Douglas and Jason Rich. Joining the vets will be a talented crop of freshmen that includes 6-foot-10 Julian Vaughn and 7-1 Solomon Alabi.

The youthful size - though Alabi has been slowed by a stress fracture in his right shin - should provide FSU the interior presence it has lacked. And without Thornton, Hamilton said, the Seminoles will operate with more freedom out of their motion offense.

Of the past two seasons, Hamilton likes to say that FSU has hit some "speed bumps." In addition to being left out of the NCAA Tournament, there have been personnel losses and injuries.

"I feel that we have potential," Hamilton said. "And I believe that if we don't run into any more of those unfortunate speed bumps, we're going to have an exciting year."

Scouting report: The Seminoles should have an advantage against most teams on the perimeter, where FSU has plenty of quick, experienced guards. FSU will rely on two freshman big men, Vaughn and 7-1 Solomon Alabi, to provide an interior punch. Seminoles could be a surprise if they stay healthy.